Monday, January 23, 2006

D.A.R.E.

The voting stations were down at the Legion this morning and I went behind the cheap cardboard box and checked my vote. Not that I believe my vote actually matters in my strongly Conservative riding, but it gives me the right to complain until the next federal election, right? You know what? Most people are surprised to learn that I vote conservative along with the county. I am not for the Conservatives, I am against the Liberals. Winston Churchill once said, "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." People hear my facetious comments about racism and homophobia and assume I actually support their own positions on those subjects, when, maybe, I'm just against racism and homophobia. And heartless, apparently. Just because I make fun of one party doesn't mean I believe in the other party. A vote for the Liberals is, in my estimation, a vote for a leader who literally contradicts himself in public forum, a vote for an ignorant man. A man who, despite video evidence, denies contradicting himself. His words, then, are meaningless. This may seem small potatoes compared to, I don't know, 1) millions of stolen dollars, 2) a gun registry which has cost billions and actually encourages gun crime, 3) the constant lowering of national and provincial educational funds and standards, 4) ramming government motions through Parliament at ungodly hours and away from the public eye, 5) ultimate power to be given to nine unelected judges (what is this, a democracy or an oligarchy?), 6) the segregation of natives, and 7), the wilful and alienating favour shown to Quebec to encourage that province's dependence on the federal government—all policies which would be shameful to any democracy, never mind the one I live in—but what disturbs me more than any of these numerals is Paul Martin. He is a smart man. He ran his own international shipping company for years, and successfully. How can a man this smart, this educated, act like an unintelligent idiot in public? Does he see himself on television? Does he hear his own words and slap his forehead in exasperation at himself? Why does he say one thing and then say another thing which cannot, with logic or common-sense, be made to agree with the first? There is some sort of disconnection deep within this man, some sort of divide or misalignment, which does not allow him to see things as they are. I do not want a leader who appears to be disconnected from reality, from hard surfaces and long division, from economics and spring and summer. I want a leader who knows what his own words mean. If Paul Martin has different meanings for his words than those which the rest of Canada agrees upon, how can he understand this nation, how can he talk to this nation? He does not appear to comprehend either himself or those he is talking to—then how can he represent those people? Paul Martin has made himself ineligible for my vote. His words do not mean what my words mean. His actions are contradictory and corrupted. Unless we, too, are contradictory and morally corrupt, how could we ever vote for this man? I, for one, cannot.

"You Gonna Be My Love Machine? (Jet vs Girls Aloud)" + Lionel Vinyl I heard the most irrititating mash-up EVER on a blog called good weather for airstrikes. It's an uneasy mix of The Killers and Bloc Party and it chafes, O my sisters and brothers, it chafes badly. I listened to it once; I'll probably never listen to it again. I'm not saying it's bad, of course. I'm just saying I loathe it and that the world is the worse for its existence. That's all. But thinking of the worst can also remind one of the best, and that frenzied mash-up led me to remember one of the most natural and positive mash-ups out there, an mp3 which ripped through the internet more than a year ago— and increased my appetite for mash-ups from something like zero to infinity. This is one of the few mashes, I think, that's withstood the test of time. These things usually burn out faster than the song they're based on; this one, I think, actually improves both songs. Hate them or love them, Jet put out a brilliant single with "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?". And Girls Aloud crushed heads with "Love Machine". This mash-up does what the DJ is supposed to do with different songs—the mash becomes an exhibition, not only of the DJ's discerning ear and talent, but of each song's strengths. The apeneck-Sweeney scream and growl of Jet's instruments are the perfect foil to GA's matter-of-fact taunt—there may be equals, but I'd be hard pressed to name a better mash out there.

Words on books will be published this evening, sometime between eight and nine.

Dali + Paul Moorhouse I love these albums, these cheap collections of glossy masterpieces. There is no messing about with analysis or "What the artist really meant" here. Oh, that's all there, I'm not saying no, but the chief emphasis of this publication is pretty pictures. It's sort of like pornography in a way (a comparison to which Dali is not a stranger, I'm sure), because while the printed word may occupy half of this page or even three-quarters of that other page, nothing gets in the way of the pictures. These are books for the masses, these collections of Dali and Rembrandt and Klimt, etcetera, and about time, too. Obviously, PRC Publishing or whoever owns that imprint, is trying to cash in on the Taschen festival which the rest of the publishing world has been shouting about for the past ten years, but that doesn't matter. The point is, these books are cheap, they're plentiful, they contain masterpieces. Love it.